Downing Street Memos Authenticity Questioned

[KipWellsFan]

http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/004746.php

 

Until tonight, however, no one questioned the authenticity of the documents provided by the Times of London. That has now changed, as Times reporter Michael Smith admitted that the memos he used are not originals, but retyped copies (via LGF and CQ reader Sapper):

 

    The eight memos — all labeled "secret" or "confidential" — were first obtained by British reporter Michael Smith, who has written about them in The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Times.

 

    Smith told AP he protected the identity of the source he had obtained the documents from by typing copies of them on plain paper and destroying the originals.

 

...

 

Readers of this site should recall this set of circumstances from last year. The Killian memos at the center of CBS' 60 Minutes Wednesday report on George Bush' National Guard service supposedly went through the same laundry service as the Downing Street Memos. Bill Burkett, once he'd been outed as the source of the now-disgraced Killian memos, claimed that a woman named Lucy Ramirez provided them to him -- but that he made copies and burned the originals to protect her identity or that of her source.

 

Why would a reporter do such a thing? While reporters need to protect their sources, at some point stories based on official documents will require authentication -- and as we have seen with the Killian memos, copies make that impossible. The AP gets a "senior British official" to assert that the content "appeared authentic", which only means that the content seems to match what he thinks he knows.

 

...

 

“I first photocopied them to ensure they were on our paper and returned the originals, which were on government paper and therefore government property, to the source,” he added. [...]

 

“It was these photocopies that I worked on, destroying them shortly before we went to press on Sept 17, 2004,” he added. “Before we destroyed them the legal desk secretary typed the text up on an old fashioned typewriter.”

 

tons more at link

[kapkomet]

Oh wow. This is just insane.

 

I know that most of the time I take the opposite stance of you, Kip, but no matter what "political stance" you have, this merry-go-round of trying to bring down governments with doctored letters and the like has to stop. And yes, that includes the government f'ups who do the same thing.

[Cerbaho-WG]

Requesting oh-snap gif.

[KipWellsFan]

Oh wow.  This is just insane.

 

I know that most of the time I take the opposite stance of you, Kip, but no matter what "political stance" you have, this merry-go-round of trying to bring down governments with doctored letters and the like has to stop.  And yes, that includes the government f'ups who do the same thing.

 

Well lets be clear that at this point there is no telling if there was any agenda behind this memo being... I guess "recreated".

[FlaSoxxJim]

Oh wow.  This is just insane.

 

I know that most of the time I take the opposite stance of you, Kip, but no matter what "political stance" you have, this merry-go-round of trying to bring down governments with doctored letters and the like has to stop.  And yes, that includes the government f'ups who do the same thing.

It's good to see someone still trying to protect the confidentiality of their sources, even though they know full well that they are going to be scrutinized every which way for it these days. It would be a whole lot easier to expose the source but that's not ethical for the journalist to do.

 

The pushing of the journalists, and the raking of the messengers because it would be easier to not hear/believe the messages is going to blow up in the faces of the folks whose only recourse any more is to discredit the journalists. The journalists are going to bury us in mountains of corroborating evidence on all these stories from here on out because they have been pushed to do it by repeated, often (not always) baseless attempts to discredit them.

[jackie hayes]

It's good to see someone still trying to protect the confidentiality of their sources, even though they know full well that they are going to be scrutinized every which way for it these days.  It would be a whole lot easier to expose the source but that's not ethical for the journalist to do.

So are you just assuming that it's all legitimate, or do you know that protecting sources is all he's trying to do? And if the latter, how do you know that?

 

We've seen journalists lie more than once recently. I don't suspect that most journalists do it, but truthfully, I am a LOT more sceptical now about any report involving unattributed quotes, leaked docs, etc. (Even -- especially? -- those produced by our own administration. :headshake ) I would think the reporters would welcome the scrutiny so that their stories might still have an impact on policy.

[FlaSoxxJim]

So are you just assuming that it's all legitimate, or do you know that protecting sources is all he's trying to do?  And if the latter, how do you know that?

 

We've seen journalists lie more than once recently.  I don't suspect that most journalists do it, but truthfully, I am a LOT more sceptical now about any report involving unattributed quotes, leaked docs, etc.  (Even -- especially? -- those produced by our own administration.  :headshake )  I would think the reporters would welcome the scrutiny so that their stories might still have an impact on policy.

That's one of the big difference between the contents of these memos and some of the other things. Lots of quotes are attributed, and most of the notes detail precicely where they were taken, who was in attendence, etc., eg, the guy who talks about having diner with Condi, the focus of their conversation on Iraq to the exclusion of everything else and the concern of this guy and several others that the US didn't have a clue about post-war planning and didn't seem concerned about it.

 

In this case, protecting the source is more about actually saving the skin of the underlings who leaked the documents. The people at the meetings in question I'm sure can and will be asked to confirm or deny the veracity of the memos. Fortunately, the officials probably will make statements that lend credence to the memos since events transpiring since July 2002 pretty much confirm their concerns (about the lack of a post_Saddam strategy, concerns about the dubious legalitty of the operation in the international view, etc.) were well founded. And for the elected Brit officials in, if they are still trying to hold office, they have to say the right things to semi-appease citizens who were never backers of the war in the way that a slim majority of people in the states were.

 

The truth is that there isn't really anything shocking in the memos; it is well understood that Bush had a hard on for this war and that he was going to get his war one way or another. That he seemingly got his war by bullying allies with whome we share a "special relationship" and by lying to congress and to the American people as to the justifications is probably going to be a more important truth in the long run. Bush isn't going anywhere and even if some hobbled congressional investigation got off the ground the GOP-controlled congress will ensure nothing would come of it. Meanwhile, however, more dubious and unsavory information on how decisions have been made and how things have been mishandled will emerge. In the short haul, hopefully it will all add up to enough to keep American voters from voting for anyone who would continue down the same paths in 2008. In the longer run, it will stand as historical testament to what the Bush II Presedency was about.